Obverse Books News

With apologies to my many, many readers who may already have seen this on various Dr Who fora and elsewhere, here's an update on Obverse's plans for 2010...

First off, the next book in the Iris series is to be called Ms Wildthyme and Friends Investigate, which Cody Schell described as "a quartet of loosely connected mystery-infused stories with danger and intrigue from the more obscure corners of the Obverse-iverse" - and that's as good a description as any.

Essentially it's four overlapping novellas which taken together make a single complete mystery novel.

Iris and Panda are in each story, but are only the primary stars of the final one. The other stories concern, respectively, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger; the Manleigh Halt Irregulars (as first seen in Paul's Panda Book of Horror tale, 'The Delightful Bag') and Senor 105, the Mexican masked wrestler created by Cody for his Celestial Omnibus story.

The authors for this book - Jim Smith, Nick Wallace, Cody Schell and myself - are already hard at work, since we're looking to publish the book in May 2010.

Secondly, the fourth book in the Iris series - and the second and final book for 2010 - is to be called Iris: Abroad (like the pun?), and will be a new short story collection edited by Paul and I along the lines of the two books already out. The only theme is that the stories can't be primarily set on the British mainland and must feature Iris and Panda as seen in the Panda Book/Celestial Omnibus. Anyone interested in pitching a story (as previously at leats one slot in the book will be reserved for a cold pitch via email or the website) should have their synopsis to us by the end of February 2010...

The publication date for this one will be November 2010 (publishing on 12 December turned out in retrospect to be a bit of a mistake, with the Christmas post slowing everything down).

Eh, and I think that's it.